When a mobile communications device needs to join a network or move from one network to another, it typically has to scan all available channels to find an appropriate network controller. In particular, the 2.4 GHz band has 11 channels and the 5 GHz band has 36 channels to scan. The 60 GHz band, which is still being developed, may have even more. To make matters worse, a multi-radio device may need to scan all the channels in multiple bands. If a mobile device is moving, it may have to scan for a new network controller frequently. All this scanning can consume large amounts of battery power in the mobile device. When a mobile device is in idle mode, a similar listening process may need to be followed on multiple channels to determine if the network controller has data to send to the mobile device, again consuming large amounts of battery power.